Before meeting you I had never dreamed, even knowing what I was and all the implications, that I would be part of something important. Now that I have, rest assured I will not let your gifts go to waste.

What I can give back is more difficult. To be happy - I won’t tell you to do that. There’s no point in the words, you taught me that well, and for you to take it plainly would stop you from being yourself, if you were to obey which is not your way, I know.

So I only say, again from experience, that there is always more. Whether it is the light you seek or your fascination with the dark that is indulged, there will always be more during your time on this earth. You in turn will be the great dark or light for many others who think they’ve seen it all. Do not worry yourself with how and if you can move the world because I give assurance that when you must, you can, and you will. Whoever you choose to put your strength behind next will be a fortunate one.

It is as ever your choice, but I would maybe like to see you devote that strength to yourself. When we next meet we can speak of what more we have seen.

Stay warm, as will I.

-Fin

“Warm? Dumbass. Now I’m only going to remember how boiling hot it was this summer.” Hazel chewed her bottom lip. “And how he fucking burned alive. In a car crash of all things.”

“Can I read it again?” Rai asked, holding a hand out.

Hazel briskly folded the sheet of hospital letterhead and shoved it into her large black tote. “I guess goodbye notes are harder to stomach when they’re personal. And from guys who never said much to begin with.”

Rai withdrew his hand. “Why did you come here, Hazel?”

She looked around the office, as if searching for a reason. “I just wanted to talk about Fin with someone, alright? I’ve spent the last week with Maya and the others and I’m kinda sick of it. Jas got out of hospital like three days ago and she blocked me on Neocam and everything.”

“Why’s that?”

“Those ratty followers of hers, or some hot new perfect-this-time-I-swear therapist calling me a toxic influence, probably. That’s how she works; one minute she’s all cuddles and saying poor shit-for-brains Hazel can tell her anything, next minute she’s plugged her ears and pointing fingers. Funny that she didn’t think of herself as a victim until I helped her double her follower count. And listen to this: she didn’t block Maya or Orchid. The little whore.”

A tea leaf caught in his throat; Sao coughed.

Hazel didn’t even glance his way. “She’ll be back. Someone with enough guts to hang themselves on camera won’t just settle down all happy and peaceful just because of a few ass-kissers. There’s no closure. We’re always chasing it, chasing each other. Jealous that the other is gonna get there first. But secret is, it doesn’t ever-”

“It comes. You just won’t know when you reach it,” Rai said.

“Like I haven’t heard that before,” Hazel muttered. “That you won’t know when you get better. You won’t know because you won’t find any reason to brag and your therapist isn’t going to give you a gold medal. It’ll just happen.” Then her voice cleared so she could toss a command Sao’s way. “Hey, I need some water to take my meds. And get me some of that tea too, will ya?”

Rai looked like he was going to give her a scolding, but Sao shrugged it off with a smile, and Hazel turned away. When Sao came back in with the tea tray, Hazel was still looking out the window, into the misty blue sky. It had rained twice since the ‘reveal’ and the raging summer sun had been doused, seemingly for good. A languid chill brought in from the sea had begun to settle over the city.

Right when things seemed comfortable, Hazel pulled out two bottles of pills. She gulped two white capsules down with all the water. “This crap just makes me nauseous.”

“Have you told your doctor?” Rai asked.

“All the meds I’ve had are like this. Best I get out of them is the power to barf on demand. Dad won’t hit me if it looks like I’m going to spew. Not that I have to worry about him anymore.” She sipped her tea and grimaced. “This shit’s too hot.”

“Glad to hear it,” Rai said.

Hazel scowled at him and Sao realized she’d been trying to camouflage the good news among complaints. “I’m still living out of a hotel room. On the money Fin’s story made, which makes me feel like trash. Like I shouldn’t have bothered.”

Rai was silent.

“The coroner said the body had organs tangled with a plastic bag. Fin used garbage can liners, cut himself open and wrapped them around - to keep his guts from flying out. So when he threw himself off buildings or in front of trucks, it was easier to pull everything back in.” Hazel sipped her scalding tea again, suddenly penitent. “That was the most obvious thing when they were ID-ing his body. There was also the one missing rib, also the rotting at the bottom of one lung that might have started way back, before Fin finished his E34 dosing. Obviously, there wasn’t much else to go on. The whole outside of the body was burnt. And he was dead, so he couldn’t talk...”

“I didn’t know fire would take a zombie out that easily,” Rai said.

“Were there any mentions of some kind of incendiary ammunition?” Sao asked. He shouldn’t have had to ask her. He already knew the answer. He just had the urge to share, to drop a hint, as she had.

She blinked. “Yeah. That’s why the fire was so bad. A bunch of guns there had some overpowered explosive rounds in them and when the engine caught fire - boom. The cops took whatever was left.”

“What a cruel way to go. For all of them,” Sao said. There had been four bodies in the army transport van.

“Hey, I would have blown up those fascists myself if I had the means,” Hazel snapped. “If it meant Fin could… Never mind. No point in thinking about the impossible. They got him in the end, and I couldn’t do anything about it.”

“So you think the explosion wasn’t an accident?”

“I think the army would have no problem killing some of their own and pretend it was an accident, say they totally didn’t mean to exterminate the only living witness to one of their fuck-ups in the process.”

They sat on that for a while. From the windowsill behind Sao’s desk came a flutter of chirping. Sparrows gathered for crumbs.

“I didn’t know Fin even had recent medical records,” Rai said, absently. He stared at the birds, at the low hanging clouds. Trying to get away.

“It was Cole who wrote them. He did surgery on Fin the night Fin came into the hospital. I wish I had been there to see it,” Hazel added, rather hastily. “Orchid talks like something really hot went down.”

“Cole would know,” Rai said, still among the clouds. “And how are you doing?”

“Didn’t I just say?”

“Don’t think so. Getting some rest?”

“I don’t have time. But I’m not going to go for a third death, if that’s the question you’re dancing around. It's not a safe deal at the moment. No more E34 up for grabs. Well, not enough of it — there’s still a blob of black goo in my head. Behind the forehead, a little to the left. Replacing brain matter I shot out. Cole says the growth's shrinking, but...” With a violent jerk, Hazel turned to looked out at the clouds too. “It’s stupid, but I feel like us talking about this shit again, it would stress Fin out. He’s supposed to be the one resting. You know?”

—

Three tumblers of whiskey sat under the buzzing neon arch that adorned the Rock Pool bar.

“You can’t say no. It’s on the house.” Free pushed the glasses outward, one to Sao and one to Rai, then took his own.

They looked at him blandly.

“Take it as an apology, then.”

“What do you have to apologize for?” Rai asked, taking off his gloves. He threw them on the bar and took his glass.

“For tripping up the investigation, what else?” Free swirled the glass, watching the golden liquid turn. “Sad thing that Fin died a wanted man. How is Aquila, by the way?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I faked being her friend so hard that I really am a little bit worried.”

Rai shook his head. “You’re going to get caught one day.”

“You’ve already caught me. The girls just let me off. Never thought I’d get a pass for literally chopping them up, but times change, don’t they? An interesting bunch, from what I got to know.” Free raised his drink to his lips, but paused. “Come on, Sao. Before management sees me giving handouts.”

Sao gave a curdled smile and shook his head. Free pulled the third glass toward himself.

“So, where are you gentlemen headed next?” Free asked, dropping the empty glasses into some unseen receptacle behind the bar.

“Back to work,” Rai said.

“What a shame. Crime never sleeps.”

“You’d know.”

Free laughed. “Well, as for me, I’m headed out in a day or two. Now that the weather’s nice, I’ve got an excuse to get out of this dungeon. Would it kill them to put in some more windows?”

“You’re leaving?” Sao asked. He’d been holding his silence against Free thus far, but the thought of Free vanishing again took his guard down in a single swipe.

“You don’t need me here anymore, do you?” Free yawned and Sao found himself unsettled even more, somehow. “I’ve got friends to meet up with. I promised I’d visit once a year. They’re gonna find this whole zombie story a riot.”

Free and Rai exchanged another round of insults that went nowhere. Sao wondered if it was not the loss of Free, but a potential next return, that unsettled him. But, he reasoned, it might not be so bad. After all, the Free today was an infinite improvement over the Free he’d met as a teenager. The man reeked of danger but his actions were no longer wild. He’d gained a sort of seriousness, a touch of control; he wasn’t bounding off walls, slathering friends and enemies alike with blood trying to prove something. (Perhaps he’d have made a good online influencer. Too bad such outlets hadn’t been available to them.)

Free, Sao decided, had become anchored. He was still strong - after last night there was no disputing it - but there was weight behind his laugh and his motions where there had once been none. When he said he’d found a face, a body, a name he liked - he’d been honest. His earnestness had been masked by various other lies and his usual sarcasm, but the fact was: he could have shifted at any time, and he hadn’t. He could have escaped or ferreted out information by using a different face, or he could have misled Rai and Sao far worse than he did. But he’d stuck to being Cas the whole way through.

Sao was happy for him, and slightly envious for reasons he didn’t care to trace.

They exited the restaurant and headed for the elevators, surrounded by fake sunset and plastic turf.

“Well, Investigator,” Free said. “Let’s not end this the way we did last year’s case.”

He stuck out his hand.

Rai’s gloves were shoved in his pocket; he was barehanded. With a raised brow, he inched one arm towards Free, tentative as if Free’s might suddenly snap, like a bear trap. Watching them, Sao’s body tensed so completely that his ears popped.

They shook.

When Rai was done, looked at his hand and raised a brow as if expecting some sort of explanation. But none came. He put his gloves back on.

“And Sao…” Free paused, a hand outstretched, but not as firmly. This was a display, not an offer. He was showing his palm — where there was not a single mark. He laughed and pulled it back. “Maybe next time, huh? Let’s catch up soon.”

Yes, Sao thought with a smile as artificial as the Rock Pool’s plastic trees. He was sure they’d talk sooner or later. But catch up? He could never manage that. Fast and hard as Sao might run, Free would never let it happen.

—

Orchid was, as predicted, the last to be discharged from the hospital. She had fully regained her fiery coloration as well as her mobility. There was still a dark ring around her neck, a decapitation scar that Cole guessed would remain for a while, possibly even becoming permanent. Orchid thought it was a delight and showed it off proudly in every photo shoot.

“Just like me,” Trae the Life Fountain said, when a reporter caught him in the hospital courtyard smoking his pipe, and asked for an insider’s scoop. But Trae didn’t pull down his collar to show his matching scar so the baffled reporter quickly walked away to find someone more telegenic.

Rai and Sao went to see Orchid off from the hospital. She spared a hug for Rai, but otherwise barely glanced at them. She was fully occupied with her phone. There had been a dust-up with Hazel for posting Orchid’s hanging video to her own channel where, with her valiant defense efforts, it resisted deletion and raked in millions of views. (In contrast, the Daily’s full video report was quickly flagged for removal; to Rai’s relief, no doubt, though his frequent check-ins to the website suggested he expected it to make a reappearance eventually.) Orchid claimed the exclusive rights should be her own. To retaliate, she had signed up herself and Cole for an interview in which she’d share many never-before-seen photos and videos of herself as a disembodied head in the hospital, as well as videos of Fin’s open-body surgery. And maybe a ‘blue stream’ when it was done, for extra kick.

Hazel had responded rather amicably, giving her the go-ahead, as if Orchid had asked for her approval as their leader.

Hazel managed to stir up a second online controversy in regard to the army’s forced removal of Fin and the ensuing coverup. With a leaked download of Aquila’s entire filing cabinet and the wonders of the internet, she’d managed to track down and even contact some distant relatives of the E34 trial participants. An unprecedented number of netizens considered this a violation of privacy as described by the trial's original terms. Commenters showcased near-religious support for the Central Army. How dare a sheltered middle class girl demean the hardworking troops? How’d you like to get sent to a work camp in the North, or die in a bombing of the Southern continent?

Hazel meticulously replied to these invectives, and fresh ones popped up each day, persistent as weeds. The scuffle under each comment drew more and more participants.

“Sounds about right. She wanted eyes on the reveal. Individual thoughts and complaints are irrelevant,” Rai said. 

Jasmine had unblocked Hazel following her return home, and to her medication. She boosted nearly all of Hazel’s posts, but appeared hesitant to make any statements of her own.

“I just needed time to think, the block was never going to be permanent,” she said on a stream, while applying some ochre to a drawing of goldenrods. “I wonder if this whole thing counts as CPTSD?”

More furious polemics in the comments below, leading to Jasmine locking her account for a few days.

Maya was often tagged in posts by the other three as a courtesy, but didn’t appear to have much interaction with them and the cause. She had instead taken to blogging about exotic fish and aquarium care.

After the deluge of photos featuring decapitations, bodies in the morgue, slit wrists, hangings and gunshots to the head, it was a photograph of Maya’s sunset-gold arowana that stopped Sao in his tracks.

“It looks like a dragon.” Sao panned through a selection of shots showing the magnificent animal from different angles. “It must be almost the length of this sofa. I wonder if the tank’s large enough.”

The sky was dark and starless, blanketed with the thick clouds which had been gathering all day. It started drizzling again. According to the forecast, they were headed for a week of rain. The smell of leaves and damp earth wafted through the open windows. Quick and quiet, the vengeful summer had left and the gentle beginnings of autumn had taken its place.

Rai was watching movie trailers and filling himself with double espresso-shot sweet tea. “What do you think of this one?”

Sao hovered by his shoulder and sipped his own dairy-free guava concoction. He saw abandoned homes and a crumbling hospital. Then, with a halting musical sting, the scene burst into action. A team of scarred and sweating - but very attractive - combatants came swinging and somersaulting through a swarm of the undead. Zombies were having their lumpy purple heads blasted off.

“Better than the last.”

Each of the heroes had their own distinct weapon. One of them, the rival of the charming male lead, favored a pair of very large, ornate daggers. The way he danced through the melee, lopping off arms and feet and heads, looked incredibly ill-advised - but far more satisfying than the work of his allies.

Then came the flashes of major plot points. The male and female lead meeting. The large gunman raising a bazooka. The lead couple flirting. The truck overturned. The lead couple kissing. The dagger-wielding companion lopping off a zombie’s head only for - horror! - the disembodied head to leap up behind him, jaw stretched wide. The man sensed it coming and thrust a knife into the creature’s forehead just in time to stop it - only to be hit with a spray of viscous brown spittle.

Rai snorted, and Sao let out a short burst of laughter.

“Oh, this is all so ridiculous.” Sao wiped his eyes and smiled. “You don’t think we’re becoming desensitized?”

“I’m shoring up defenses for the girls’ primetime talk.”

The reason Sao had stayed late at the office was to watch the news broadcast as it streamed. Hazel, Jasmine, Maya and Orchid had agreed to meet in person for the first time since their hospital stay, to talk about the experience. After a week - and it had been just a week - of mudslinging and radicalizing and block evasions (he wasn’t completely sure how the latter worked exactly), sparks were expected to fly.

From what little they could see from the studio, security looked rather heavy. Sao remembered that Hazel had smuggled in a gun the last time she had taken to a stage.

The four walked in, all in black.

“Did you coordinate this?” the host asked Hazel, who wore a cap over the newly grown fuzz on her head.

Hazel looked from Jasmine, to Orchid to Maya, as if she was surprised to see them there. “No. I guess we just thought the same way.”

“It’s a funeral. Commemorating a dead person - that’s more or less a funeral,” said Orchid in her teacherly tone. The scar on her neck looked like a black lace choker from afar.

They took a unified front against the poor host. Sao felt sorry for the showrunners, but couldn’t help smiling.

The host was eager to push past any mention of Fin, but Hazel dug in her heels, all three of her friends backing her. Fin’s life and his various attempts to take it were rehashed in gory detail. Cole got a mention, as did Aquila and her brother Blase. Rai and Sao were mistitled as a nameless ‘cop and his partner.’ Considering Rai asked to go unmentioned, maybe this was their compromise.

After an extensive rundown from Hazel on how it felt to shoot herself in the head and an attempt by her to show the video (hastily cut short by the producer), the host attempted to end on a positive note. “It gets better, doesn’t it?”

Only it wasn’t asking. It was telling. And Sao knew Hazel well enough to know she’d strike back. The look she was giving the host radiated, it seemed to throw a weight over the audience, both live and those watching through the screen.

“Not really,” Jasmine said.

“Only a little at a time before it’s downhill again,” Maya said, judiciously. It was one of maybe five sentences she’d said all night.

“You don’t wanna get your hopes up,” Orchid declared, throwing her arms over the backrest of the studio club chair.

Hazel looked to each of them in turn, somewhat perplexed, then to the host. “How should I know? All I'm gonna say is, never trick yourself into believing you've seen it all, that you've tried everything. Just accept it: as long as you live, you'll never stop being an ignorant, unprepared fuck. There's always something that you never could have prepared for, just around the corner.”

She reached a hand up but stopped at the brim of her cap - she wanted to touch the scar on her forehead. Somehow, Sao knew.

"If you're lucky, it'll at least be interesting."

Sao must have been smiling ear to ear as the host thanked the girls and all but chased them offstage.

—

Lying on his silken bedspread, Sao was ready to fall asleep. His nights had become sweet and dreamless, which was a miracle considering how often he ruminated over Free right before dropping off.

Of course, he reasoned, he hadn’t seen Free do much cutting and gutting. And there was the possibility he mentioned at Rai’s place; that he was becoming desensitized.

But what he kept coming back to was Free and Rai’s handshake.

As a shapeshifter, Free’s hand should have been burned by Rai’s aura. He’d have felt it; could easily have faked not feeling it, but his hand would have come back marked. That was the point of the shake, on Rai’s part. Free must have known that. And yet…?

Dozing off, the uncharitable spirit in Sao bubbled up, whispered that the two had played a prank on him. Free he assumed never went about anything without a scheme, but Rai he was really upset with. His traitorous hands had absolved Free, right in front of Sao’s eyes.

No. Free had been dropping wedges between them since the day they’d first spoken to him in the Rock Pool. He had to be the one behind the trick.

He’d offered the shake after previously avoiding it. Something he’d learned in the military? Magic? Was there makeup, some alchemical lotion to resist a Life Fountain’s aura? Perhaps there had been something in the drink. Only Rai had taken the drink…

Rai would have noticed. Or would he? Sao tamped down that spiteful little notion. Doubting Rai so he could believe in Free’s cleverness was probably what Free wanted, and might very well be correct, but Sao preferred to leave that as a last resort.

For some reason he thought of Orchid. What she’d said, lolling her head in the studio so her throat and vicious black scar were front and center.

Don’t wanna get your hopes up.

He might never figure Free out. It’s not like the handshake was the only conundrum he’d left dangling overhead.

I wanted to see you squirm.

Sao thought of the movies, the handsome actor with the daggers. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but the sweeping dancer’s motions (and the weapons, naturally) reminded him of Free. Guns just seemed so impersonal, so sterile in comparison.

You remind me of someone. I just can’t put my finger on it.

A lie from the very start. Free had recognized him straight away; it wasn’t Sao who’d changed his face after all.

Sao was struck that he had never gotten to see Free’s scars, even at the end. Just about everyone else had gotten a look at them uncovered. Even Rai, last year when he’d attempted to interrogate Free at the suspicious house party. Sao felt oddly jealous.

This was the trouble with masks. He’d been wearing one the whole time, so why did he feel owed a look at Free’s unvarnished face?

Sao thought of the actor skewering the zombie’s still-twitching head. The seemingly infallible cool customer was not perfect after all; he was human. All it took was a little spit, and a little shock from something a little bit more than human to put him in his place.

He thought of Hazel, holding onto the hope that the E34 lump in her brain, the scar filler, the remnants of Fin, would linger just a bit longer.

He thought of smoke and a face cloaked in smoke. But not cigarette smoke.

Sao gripped the covers and pulled himself up. His mind was cloudless, revealing an image so sharp it stung. He’d finally summoned the reason behind that sense of deja vu he felt when looking at Free. Free’s new face, his new body and his new violet eyes. And this time, he truly knew who he had been looking at the whole time.